


When You Needed It Shouted

by stcrmpilot



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: :), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Audio 08.00: Enemy Lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 12:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19830295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stcrmpilot/pseuds/stcrmpilot
Summary: Apparently, being murdered can do a number on one's emotional state.(AU in which Narvin and co. can consciously remember what happened with the Watchmaker)





	When You Needed It Shouted

**Author's Note:**

> Uh oh! Turns out every Hozier song is about these fools and I'm obsessed. RIP in peace, me.

Narvin hadn’t really expected to be able to sleep that night—after all, he has just been murdered, and sleep doesn’t tend to agree with him under the best of circumstances. What surprises him is that it seems to be catching. 

Leela shows up first. He suspects she only bothers knocking because he’s locked his door, but he’s glad for the advance warning; the sudden noise startles him upright in bed, staser in hand before he can consciously decide to reach for it, and it would be awfully inconvenient if he were to accidentally shoot someone after all the trouble they’ve gone through. Sighing shakily, he sets the weapon down on his nightstand and crosses the room. 

He has about two nanospans to process the fact that Leela is standing outside his room, before she rushes inside and throws her arms around him. He freezes in alarm, arms hovering well away from her, thoroughly incapable of making heads or tails of what’s happening. He wonders if she’s mistaken him for someone else, or if she’s sleepwalking, or if she’s been hypnotized. Then her hands clench in his robes, pulling him closer, and he realizes that her whole body is trembling. Slowly, his brain comes back online, his hearts resuming a normal rhythm, and he’s left terribly confused. 

“Er… Leela?” he asks cautiously. 

She relaxes a bit, as if calmed by his voice. “Narvin,” she replies, sounding for all the world like everything is perfectly normal, except that her voice is muffled by his robes. 

A number of questions run through his mind—what’s she doing here, has something gone wrong, is she alright?—but he can’t find a way to phrase any of them that doesn’t make him sound like an idiot. “You’re… conscious, then,” he remarks instead, which really isn’t any better. 

“Do you not know how to hug people?” she asks. “I can teach you.”

He realizes he still hasn’t moved from his awkward position. “I know how,” he mumbles, vacillating for a moment before settling his arms lightly around her, a hand on her back and the other on her opposite shoulder. 

She sighs, contented. For several long moments, neither of them move a muscle. Then she raises her head from his shoulder and meets his eyes, hardly loosening her grip on him at all. 

“I dreamed that I was with you in the Matrix,” she says quietly. “I watched you die, and I could do nothing.”

A cold weight settles in the pit of his stomach. Though his memories of being hunted through the archives are hazy and mangled in terms of content, the heart-tripping terror that accompanies them is as sharp and fresh as anything; seeing a similar fear reflected in Leela’s face is a bit much for him. He pulls her back into a tight hug, her head tucked under his chin, so he doesn’t have to look. 

He only realizes that he hasn’t relocked his door when it slides open to reveal Romana standing on the other side. 

With a rather undignified yelp, Narvin jumps and takes his hands off Leela. Leela, to his dismay, doesn’t let go, only turns her head. 

“Hello, Romana,” she says. “You cannot sleep either?”

“So it seems,” says Romana, raising an inquisitive eyebrow in Narvin’s direction. 

He feels the tips of his ears heat. 

“Oh, don’t make that face,” she mutters, her eyes scanning his quarters. 

“Romana, is something wrong?” he asks, forcing himself to forget that his superior officer is in his room, and there’s still a human hanging on to him. “Is it–”

“No,” she says. “Everything’s fine. The timelines are still…” She trails off as if simply too tired to continue the small-talk, hesitates for a long moment, then sighs, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “I– I came to see you,” she admits. She almost opens her mouth to continue, but changes her mind; he can’t be sure, but there’s something about the crease in her brow, the set of her lips, that implies an “alive” is sitting on the tip of her tongue. 

“Oh.” Narvin’s not entirely sure how he feels about that. It really should be a healthy dose of embarrassment and not much else—the fact that two separate people have felt the need to check up on him would seem to imply that he can’t take care of himself, which he can—but apparently being murdered can do a number on one’s emotional state, and he hasn’t the conviction to turn away their company right now. And nor is he lacking in sympathy for their situation. He’s already demonstrated how far he’s willing to go in order to save Romana from the Daleks; if he had to face either of their lifeless bodies (or, he can admit privately, even Braxiatel’s) he thinks he might just find himself in their rooms too. 

He’s certain Ace has extolled previously about the freeing nature of a near-death experience. Perhaps she’s not entirely wrong. 

“I’ll go,” Romana says, masking any discomfiture under decisiveness, and turns around. 

“Oh, Romana,” he sighs, stopping her with a hand on her arm, which then slips around her shoulders as she hurries back and wraps him in an almost-painful hug, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Leela makes room for her, keeping one arm around his waist and resting her free hand on Romana’s back in a comforting gesture. 

“Narvin?” Romana whispers. 

“Yes?” he asks softly, though his hearts skip nervously on instinct. 

She sniffles. “I missed you. I missed you, Narvin, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry–”

“No,” he protests, surprising himself with the strength of the aversion he feels to that. “No, don’t– don’t apologize. Rassilon, no, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I sent Brax back,” she mumbles. “And I went along with the plan.”

“That wasn't you,” he reminds her, allowing a measure of gentleness into his tone that should mortify him, but doesn’t. "It can't ever be you, now. And then you fixed it."

“You could not have known what would happen,” Leela adds. She leans over and kisses the crown of Romana’s head. 

The thought of doing the same crosses Narvin’s mind, rejected as quickly as it appears. He settles for holding her a bit closer, hoping against reason that she doesn’t really blame herself for his death. Or not-death. 

She sighs, neither accepting nor protesting their stance, and he knows that’s about the best they can expect for now. She stands up on her tip-toes and presses a brief kiss to his cheek, so quick he might’ve missed it but for the fact that his mind fills with static, before she sidesteps him to eye his living space critically. 

“Do you really have to be quite so frugal?” she asks, casting him a despairing look. “I don’t know how you even fit yourself on that bed.”

She sweeps over to the other side of the room and settles down on the little sofa facing the screen he only ever turns on for official broadcasts. The implication takes a moment to set in. 

He blinks. “You– oh. Oh, you’re… staying?” 

“Yes,” says Romana, at the same time Leela exclaims, “Of course!”

“Oh.” 

Leela tugs him over to the sofa, gently pushing him down to sit beside Romana, who’s tucked herself into the corner against the armrest, legs drawn up beneath her. She leans her shoulder against his, taking his hand and lacing their fingers together. Leela flops down beside him and pokes him around until she’s satisfied with his position, then curls up to his side and settles her head on his chest, arm looped around his waist. He fears she might hear the way his hearts are fluttering. But then again, he figures, at least she can’t see the horribly fond smile he can’t quite seem to suppress. 

That all vanishes rather quickly when the door slides open once more, and Braxiatel wanders in, hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face. Narvin only fails to jump to his feet because he can’t bear to disturb the others. 

“Ah,” Brax says. “That would explain where you two went.”

“Hello Braxiatel,” says Leela, somewhat sleepily. “Have you come to stay as well?”

“My room is not actually a barrack, you know,” Narvin grumbles. 

“Oh, indeed,” Brax agrees, “it’s far too dreary. No decent commander would let their troops within a mile of such a demoralizing place.”

“Are you insulting me, Brax?” Romana asks, a smile in her tone. 

“Never, my lady,” he purrs. 

“Is Leela really the only one of you who knows how to knock?” Narvin says incredulously. 

Brax gives a quiet chuckle, reaching over to activate the lock. Narvin relaxes a little, out of habit, but grows nervous again when the customary languid smile slips from Brax’s face, replaced with something uncharacteristically haggard. He walks slowly over behind the couch, idly trailing his fingers along Leela’s arm as he goes. Much to Narvin’s shock, he bends down and wraps his arms loosely around his chest, resting his forehead on his shoulder. 

“I… er…” Narvin tries to find a way to express the utter confusion he’s in, and comes up short. 

“Oh, hush,” says Brax. His voice is so devoid of humour that Narvin wonders if he isn’t dying himself, for surely nothing else could sober _him_. 

The subdued tone he’s set forces Narvin to set aside the teasing regardless. “Braxiatel, really, I– I don’t understand,” he says quietly. “Why are you doing… that?”

He feels Brax take a deep, shaky breath, in and out. 

“It has been brought to my attention,” he says waveringly, “that if I did not, and if come tomorrow I never saw you again… I would regret it dearly.”

Narvin hesitates, for a much shorter length of time than he should. And then, because he’s relatively certain he would regret it if he never got another chance, he reaches up and takes Brax’s hand in his, holding it tight to his chest. Brax nearly goes limp, as if he’s just as relieved as Narvin that his gesture of intimacy won’t be met with scorn. 

Leela, apparently, has also taken something from Brax’s admission, belying Narvin’s assumption that she couldn’t possibly be any more open about her feelings. She shifts inexplicably closer, raises her hand to his cheek and tilts his head towards her, so he meets her eyes. 

“We love you, Narvin,” she says quietly. He swears his hearts must have stopped entirely. 

Romana’s free hand moves to cover their linked ones, her thumb brushing across the ridge of his knuckles. “We… love you, Narvin,” she manages, with much less of an internal struggle than he would’ve anticipated. 

Brax lifts his head and presses a gentle, lingering kiss to his temple, making something ache behind his breastbone. “We love you,” he murmurs against his skin, so quiet he’s not sure the others could catch it if they tried. Then he rests his head on his shoulder once more. 

Despite the fact that he’s been jumping at shadows all night, that his hand hasn’t stopped straying to his throat when he isn’t paying attention, Narvin doesn’t think he’s ever felt safer. 

After a long while, Romana stirs against him. 

“Come lie down, Brax,” she whispers. “It’s nearly first sunrise.”

Brax shifts dazedly, taking a moment to return to full awareness. “Is it really?” he asks, his perpetual casual interest firmly back in place, even though he yawns as he stands, shaking out stiff limbs. He practically drags himself around the couch, and takes it upon himself to lie across all three of their laps, lounging back with a hand under his head. Narvin, thoroughly lacking the will to police himself anymore, takes his free hand again. 

Leela makes a little noise, which he supposes must be a laugh but comes out as more of a snuffle. “I like you better like this,” she mumbles, half-asleep. “Perhaps you should almost die more often.”

“I think,” he sighs, “I’m alright with the current rate.”

Then all three of them are giggling quietly, too tired to realize it isn’t funny in the slightest. It fades away one by one, giving way to the sound of soft, slow breathing, the feeling of their weight and their warmth grounding him. 

Wondering if this could possibly happen again—preferably at someone else's expense, for once—he falls asleep at last. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [stcrmpilot.tumblr.com](https://stcrmpilot.tumblr.com)!


End file.
